First, do you think people living on non-monotheistic cultures experience a deficiency of community awareness and interaction, without this bonding diety?
Second, you are giving thanks to the engineer of an ecological system in which an overwhelming majority of creatures with nervous systems die in an unimaginably excruciating (and rather thankless) manner. “Thank you, God, for making somebody else suffer, instead of me.”
From a book I bought - “The complete Bible answer book”:
“If jealousy is a sin, how can God be jealous”:
There are lots of Google search results for why does god want worship:
e.g.
This. If there is a God he’s an asshole.
Even more worrisome, sometimes you were the meat.
This isn’t the board to ask this question, since most of the people who will respond don’t believe in God.
It’s not an unsettled question. God wants us to worship him for our own good. Worship makes you happier. It gets your focus off the bad things in life and onto the good things of God. It leaves you open to God’s instructions, which are always for your benefit. It inspires the same type of love that you should be expressing to your fellow human beings*. The more you love someone, the more you want to do what they want you to do, rather than it seeming like a chore.
The concept that God is some evil narcissist rejects the concept of who Christians say God is, and thus makes the whole thing pointless. They aren’t worshiping a being they believe is a narcissist. They’re worshiping someone who actually is great. He’s jealous “for us,” for our good, not jealous “of other gods.”
I don’t understand why atheists so often think they will find some sort of gotcha in the Bible. Sure, you may find reasons not to believe, and maybe they will be convincing to those who currently do believe. But there is always going to be someone else who has an answer. And if it’s something you picked up casually, it’s going to be something they picked up long ago and have spent a lot of time on.
*And if you don’t think loving your fellow human beings is useful, realize that it’s the only reason why people don’t treat you like shit. Reciprocity only gets you so far.
Well… the argument that he wants to be worshipped because he wants the best for us is sort of circular. It’s just difficult to give common sense credence to the notion that an entity responsible for maintaining the physical universe is also very invested in relative pond scum following his behavioral directions. You can wave the "you have to have faith " flag, but it really doesn’t cut it in addressing the scale difference. God would literally have to be an irrational cartoon to behave that way.
Didn’t read the whole thread.
“Why should an omnipotent God care if you worship them or not?”
S/He doesn’t. Prayer/worship works on and changes US, because an omni-*whatever *Being would be unchangeable by definition. The fact is everything we know about God (or whatever name/term you use) is based on extrapolation from our own nature, which is okay, as there is no other option. But it doesn’t amount to much that we can be sure of. And that’s okay, too. It’s called Mystery.
I’ve already answered this once in this thread: “An infinite God wouldn’t be limited in whom he could care about.”
In many mathematics threads it’s been pointed out that “common sense” intuition can fail us or lead us astray when it comes to the infinite.
Perhaps that’s what worship is: recognition, and celebration, of the fact (for those who consider it a fact) that God both is so great (big, exalted, almighty) and cares for human beings.
[QUOTE=Psalm 8:3-5]
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
[/QUOTE]
So it’s a way to subvert free will, is what you’re saying. “Worship me, because by worshipping me I will seem more real to you, which will cause you to love me. Then you will be the perfect servant. That’s ultimately what you are to me.”
I mean, I get it. This is not too different from what I said upthread. But it’s pretty manipulative, don’t you think? If a mother directed her children to worship her just so that they’d be happy to make their beds every morning, wouldn’t you call her a narcissist? Wouldn’t you think there is a better way to elicit love than demanding it?
Do you think a Christian who carries out his Christian responsibilities out of a sense of obligation rather than love is a worse Christian than one who carries out of his responsibilities because of love? If the same number of naked bodies get clothed, fed, and sheltered by these two people, why does it matter who wasn’t feeling what? I’m not asking you do you think God cares about this. I’m asking do you think he should care. Even if you think he’s right to care, do you understand why others are troubled by it?
I was obviously a failure as a Christian. I tried to get into the worship thing (which is a huge thing in a Pentacostal church), but I just couldn’t. I’m just not the kind of person who expresses emotion openly and freely, for people let alone an invisible entity. So worship itself was a big chore for me. While I have no doubt that worship attracts people, it is also a deterrent for others.
What I said just above about extrapolating based on what we are like-- you’re doing it. BY DEFINITION, “God” is the Ultimate Other. God is not a person the way a human being is a person. Don’t make God as small as we are.
I’m not a biblical literalist, but if it’s true that humans are made in God’s image, that doesn’t mean that God is made in our image. We try to make God like us and attribute to God the emotions, thinking processes, and the other things that make us us, because what else do we have to work with? But any God worthy of the name is not us and is not like us.
Surely the people who claim to love him would also claim to understand him enough to know that he is worthy of their love. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe people don’t see anything wrong with blind irrational love like I do.
It sounds like you’re saying that God could be anything, including a monster, the complete opposite of how our simple human minds have fashioned him to be. But a monster is not loving or deserving of love. Why should anyone be impressed by a religion that commands its followers to profess love for a monster?
To me, it doesn’t seem like it is the non-believer who is anthropomorphizing “god”. It’s the folks who insist that this supernatural entity wants us to worship him for X, Y, and Z reasons who are doing that. If God got on a bullhorn and told BigT that he’s got it all wrong–God actually wants us to worship him because he likes when people stroke his ego…wouldn’t that change BigT’s faith just a little? I know it would mine if I were a believer. It is more comforting to think that the directive to worship is in place because it promotes feelings of love and well-being rather than the alternative: God is an attention-whoring, emotionally needy narcissist. You will have a hard time finding a believer who thinks this is God’s nature, though.
In contrast, I don’t think there is any reason an infinite omniscient being couldn’t have a personality like this. So I disagree that I’m the one who is making God as small as we are.
They can claim to understand God until the cows stand up and talk. But the plain fact, intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, is that no one really understands God. That’s all I came to say. I’m outta here. Good luck.
From my sister:
Whelp, as an ex-theist, I can give you the answer of my former religion.
God cares about what we do because he loves us and wants us to live our lives right so that we can eventually join him where he is and become like him. (That’s the answer that is emphasized.) Also, creating life and guiding that life toward fulfilment and salvation bring glory to god. (Which kind of suggests that God also has a more selfish ulterior motive, but they never word it that way.)
My faith-breaking dilemma was, if God really loves us and wants us to learn about and follow him, why does he make it impossible to believe in him?
Although I have rejected religion, either due to my upbringing in religion or my own insecurities, the fundamental notion of god’s existence is pretty much engrained in my mind, such that I can’t go full atheist; but my current philosophy is that if a god exists, it is unknowable, and I should therefore not waste my life trying or pretending to know anything about god.
Still, like astro, I do like to philosophize about the nature of god sometimes, and just today a thought occurred to me about why a theoretical god might require worship. Perhaps god needs us to believe in it because our belief is what creates god. Perhaps god is just the combined product of the myriad beliefs of humanity. Perhaps we were god’s creators before it was our creator, and without our belief in it, god would cease to exists. Could such a god still be considered omnipotent? Probably not. Where was god before humanity evolved? Iunno. Maybe some aliens dreamed god up first, and that god has been seeding the world with sentient life ever since, just to feed off our beliefs. God demands that we worship it because god is hungry.
I’m wondering now if this is from some kind of Neil Gaiman type story I’m half remembering.
Is there any religion that believes that we created god through our own thoughts?
I like this idea.
Interesting observation.
Even when I was trying to be religious, some forms of worship that I observed just seemed off to me.
Worship that takes the form of euphoria always struck me as self-serving (like getting high).
Worship that takes the form of adoration always creeped me out.
“Gods are the product of belief” is the topic of lots of fiction, including Gaiman’s American Gods.
That’s a big obstacle indeed. For many, it leads to the notion of “the elect.” God only favors some people, but not others. This has led some Christian denominations to declare that Jesus died, not for everyone, but only for the chosen few.
I find a much greater attraction in Universalism, where Christ died for all, and where Hell, in the long run, is going to be empty. (Even Satan, at the very last, will come round, apologize sincerely, and be embraced by the power of infinite love.)
If modern Christianity emphasized Universalism – and I like the way Pope Francis has been throwing out some mild hints in that direction – it would be vastly more acceptable to vastly more people, increasing its popularity and appeal, and becoming more universal in worldly terms. You want a bigger church? Be inviting and welcoming!
To my mind, if even one soul burns in hell, God has failed. His love falls short of infinite or perfect. And since this is held to be impossible by many, the logic can be resolved only one way.
I think a lot of Christians need for God to be a hard-ass, though. If there is no admission fee to get into the club, why have a club at all? If you don’t have to walk a certain way to walk with the Lord, why not sit all the time? What’s the point of our existence if we’re all going to heaven anyway? Isn’t that like giving everyone a trophy just for participating?
I’m not a believer, but the concept of universalism bothers me for the similar reasons. A loving, ever-forgiving, non-judgmental God who cares about me no matter what I do sounds too…convenient. At least the concept of a narcissistic god isn’t self-serving.
It isn’t so much self-serving as it is God-rehabilitating.
We cannot envision a moral hell. There is simply no way “burn in flames for all eternity” can be reconciled with “A benevolent God.”
Universalism is a way of redeeming God from that contradiction. It allows him to be good again.
It isn’t self-serving: it’s God-serving!
An eternal fiery Hell that torments sinners for eternity is a Catholic thing. There is no burning in hell in the Bible. The wages of sin is death, not eternal torment in hell.
The idea that hell lasts forever is very common among Protestants too. BTW I think the Bible says that there is some amount of burning in hell. A good site is http://jewishnotgreek.com